Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins (10 April 1880-14 May 1965) was the US Secretary of Labor from 4 March 1933 to 30 June 1945, succeeding William Doak and preceding Lewis Schwellenbach.

Biography
Frances Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1880, and she graduated with an AB from Mount Holyoke College, and an AM at Columbia. She took up social work, working in New York City from 1910 until 1929, when she was appointed state industrial commissioner (1929-32) by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Like many progressives of her generation, she was deeply affected by the New York Clothing Co. Triangle Factory fire on 25 March 1911, whereupon she also campaigned for better health and safety legislation. She worked in New York City until 1929, when she was appointed state industrial commissioner by Roosevelt. During the New Deal, against bitter business and political opposition, she became Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, the first woman Cabinet member in the United States. She played an active role in minimum wage and maximum hours legislation, and helped to draft the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. More than anyone else, she was responsible for the 1935 Social Security Act, having chaired the committee which drafted it. This became a milestone in American government, giving it a role in the provision of social security. She dealt with many labor questions during World War II, when women moved into formerly male jobs in the industrial sector. She left office in 1945, and she died twenty years later.